Recent Posts

I've tried to start using Twitter a few times now, but had never been successful before. After reflecting on why I failed in the past, I came up with some guidelines that have helped me enjoy Twitter a lot more this time around.

Our company has shifted away from the "moving fast and breaking things" philosophy recently. This is a reflection on the pros (the exhiliraiton, the learnings, the morale boost) and the cons (tech debt, cultural concerns, and the long-term cost of being "wrong") of that philosophy.

Yelp recently redesigned its business pages. This redesign suggests Yelp is focusing more on restaurants, but it might spell potential trouble with its core group of users. Yelp can counteract this by creating a separate experience for content creators.

I made the transition from finance to a tech startup. Now having been on both sides of the job hunt process, I have a better sense of how to go about finding a job at a startup, especially for somebody coming from finance or business. Here are some of the most common points and pieces of advice that come up in conversations I have on this topic.

There is a whole other side to Amazon that most people don't know about - cloud computing services. Along with selling all kinds of physical goods, Amazon has also been providing a vital infrastructure service to the internet. This post is going to give a non-tech-heavy introduction to this service, requiring no previous computer science knowledge.

Recently, I attended one of ElasticSearch's Core training sessions, and I wanted to share some of the more interesting tips that were mentioned, on topics ranging from mappings to multi-fields to index filter aliases, and more.

Life-tracking tools, like FitBit, Jawbone, or even MyFitnessPal, have always been hard for me to adopt. These kinds of products are all the rage nowadays, but do they actually work? Do these products actually go beyond that and achieve the underlying, but not always clearly stated, goal of helping users improve their lifestyles? I think that the answer is a "not yet".

At our startup, we run a lot of split tests when working on new features. Over a year into my job and after running dozens of split tests, I now have a deeper appreciation for the power of split tests done correctly, but also for the weaknesses. I especially appreciate what I now view as the biggest weakness - they aren't good for helping you find new mountains to chase.

After joining a startup, one cool tech concept I had to learn about right away was version control. At work, we use a tool called Github, which is based on the Git version control system and allows many coders to work on one codebase. As a sequel to my first "Non-Tech Introduction", this post will provide an overview of Git and Github assuming no tech background and with minimal use of jargon.